Joe the Winemaker – The Official Blog of Oregon Winemaker Joe Dobbes

Hey everyone! Just a quick introduction, I’m Mary Bellando and I’m the Northwest Sales Manager for Dobbes Family Estate and Wine By Joe. I asked to be a guest blogger to let you all know about this amazing vintner dinner we are putting together with this tiny little restaurant called Ruth’s Chris Steak House, maybe you’ve heard of it? I went to Ruth’s Chris restaurant in Portland a couple weeks ago to put together the menu with the food and wine pairing for the Dobbes Family Estate wine dinner on Jan. 13th . It was awesome! I was with two of my sales reps from Young’s Columbia. We tasted each course they (Ruth’s Chris) want to serve at the dinner.

We started with an appetizer of BBQ shrimp in a zesty creamy BBQ sauce served with their yummy garlic bread. We chose the 2007 Dobbes Family Estate Pinot Gris to pair with that dish. Next was a fabulous harvest salad with mixed greens, dried cherries, toasted pecans and a little goat cheese, we decided on the 2008 Dobbes Viognier for that dish.

The entrée was their signature filet toped with a crab cake and drizzled with a béarnaise! We couldn’t decide on which red we wanted to use for that course because the Pinot Noir and Syrah were both excellent with the dish, so we decided to use both! That filet course will be served with Dobbes 2005 Cuvee Pinot Noir and the 2005 Grand Assemblage Syrah. We thought it would be a good food and wine pairing education to taste two different varietals with the same dish. The last course was Ruth’s Chris famous Crème Brule we of course paired that dish with the Dobbes 2007 Late Harvest Viognier.

I am really looking forward to this dinner on January 13 at Ruth’s Chris. There are only 30 seats available it should sell out quickly!

Mary

Veraison is continuing, and in the Pinot Noir, perhaps 80%of the berries have turned a deep purple hue. The Pinot Gris is at around 50%, and the Blanc remains behind at 5. In the darker berries, the varietal flavors are beginning to appear as the sugar accumulates.

As veraison continues, so too does lignification, and the shoots which were once green are turning into wood, hardening off for the winter.

As this occurs, vines show their colors, and we’re able to pinpoint areas of the vineyard with perhaps shallower soil by noticing where vines are showing a bit of stress by the changing color of the basal leaves: pale yellows in the white varieties and blood red in the Pinot Noir.

We’ve finished dropping excess fruit, and we’re now simply waiting for the grapes to mature. We’re spending this downtime trapping gophers, and though we’re more successful and less entertaining than Bill Murray’s character in Caddy Shack, the comparison isn’t too far off.

Our neighbors have plowed the hay and grass fields all around us, and hawks sit on the fenceposts, scouting for easy prey. Elk stroll slowly through the fields to the south. Coyotes jog past in the fields to the west. The Blackberries alongside the creek are fat and juicy.

The vineyard is happy, healthy, and the grapes are getting sweeter and darker every day.

Here are some pictures of Matt doing a second racking of the 2008 Pinot Noirs (which I might add are phenomenal).

The process of  racking is essentially cleansing the wine. Racking removes the wine from barrel or tank and separates it from the lees and sediment that form.

Rinsing the pump and hoses to avoid any cross contamination  between different lots of Pinot Noir and different aged barrels.